Star Trek - Blish, James - 01 Page 3

  "You don't dare. You've got my ship. I want it back. And I want my crew back whole, too-if I have to break your neck to do it."

  "Don't push me," Charlie whispered. "Don't push me."

  At the next step forward, a sleet-storm of pain threw Kirk to the deck. He could not help crying out.

  "I'm sorry," Charlie said, sweating. "I'm sorry-"

  The subspace unit hummed loudly, suddenly, and then began to chatter in intelligible code. Uhura reached for the unscrambler.

  "Stop that!" Charlie screamed, whirling. "I said, stop it!"

  The pain stopped; Kirk was free. After a split-sec-ond's hesitation to make sure he was all there, he lunged to his feet. Spock and McCoy were also closing in, but Kirk was closer. He drew back a fist.

  "Console is clear," Sulu's voice said behind him. "Helm answers."

  Charlie dodged away from Kirk's threat, whimper-ing. He never had looked less like the captain of any-thing, even his own soul. Kirk held back his blow in wonder.

  Pop!

  Janice Rand was on the bridge, putting out both hands to steady herself. She was white-faced and shaken, but otherwise unharmed.

  Pop!

  "That was a hell of a fall, Jim," Sam Ellis' voice said. "Next time, take it a little-hey, what's all this?"

  "Message is through," Lieutenant Uhura's voice said dispassionately. "Ship off our starboard bow. Identifies itself as from Thasus."

  With a cry of animal panic, Charlie fell to the deck, drumming on it with both fists.

  "Don't listen, don't listen!" he wailed. "No, no please! I can't live with them any more."

  Kirk watched stolidly, not moving. The boy who had been bullying and manipulating them for so long was falling apart under his eyes.

  "You're my friends. You said you were my friends. Remember-when I came aboard?" He looked up piteously at Kirk. "Take me home, to Colony Five. That's all I want... It's really all I want!"

  "Captain," Spock said in an emotionless voice. "Some-thing happening over here. Like a transporter materiali-zation. Look."

  Feeling like a man caught in a long fall of dominoes, Kirk jerked his eyes toward Spock. There was indeed something materializing on the bridge, through which Spock himself could now be seen only dimly. It was per-haps two-thirds as tall as a man, roughly oval, and fight-ing for solidity. It wavered and changed, and colors flowed through it. For a moment it looked like a gigantic human face; then, like nothing even remotely human; then, like a distorted view of a distant but gigantic building. It did not seem able to hold any state very long.

  Then it spoke. The voice was deep and resonant. It came, not from the apparition, but from the subspace speaker; but like the apparition, it wavered, blurred, faded, blared, changed color, as if almost out of control.

  "We are sorry for this trouble," it said. "We did not realize until too late that the human boy was gone from us. We searched a long time to find him, but space travel is a long-unused skill among us; we are saddened that his escape cost the lives of those aboard the first ship. We could not help them because they were exploded in this frame; but we have returned your people and your weapons to you, since they were only intact in the next frame. Now everything else is as it was. There is nothing to fear; we have him in control."

  "No," Charlie said. He was weeping convulsively. Clambering to his knees, he grappled Kirk by a fore-arm. "I won't do it again. Please, I'll be nice. I won't ever do it again. I'm sorry about the Antares, I'm sorry. Please let me go with you, please!"

  "Whee-oo," McCoy said gustily. "Talk about the ma-rines landing-!"

  "It's not that easy," Kirk said, looking steadily at the strange thing-a Thasian?-before him. "Charlie destroyed the other ship and will have to be punished for it. But thanks to you, all the other damage is repaired- and he is a human being. He belongs with his own people."

  "You're out of your mind," McCoy said.

  "Shut up, Bones. He's one of us. Rehabilitation might make him really one of us, reunite him to his own people. We owe him that, if he can be taught not to use his power."

  "We gave him the power," the apparition said, "so that he could live. It cannot be taken back or forgotten. He will use it; he cannot help himself. He would destroy you and your kind, or you would be forced to destroy him to save yourselves. We alone offer him life."

  "Not at all," Kirk said. "You offer him a prison-not even a half-life."

  "We know that. But that damage was done long ago; we can do now only what little best is left. Since we are to blame, we must care for him. Come, Charles Evans."

  "Don't let them!" Charlie gasped. "Don't let them take me! Captain-Janice! Don't you understand, I can't even touch them-"

  The boy and the Thasian vanished, in utter silence. The only remaining sound was the dim, multifarious humming surround of the Enterprise.

  And the sound of Janice Rand weeping, as a woman weeps for a lost son.

  Dagger of the Mind

  Simon van Gelder came aboard the Enterprise from the Tantalus Penal Colony via transporter, inside a box addressed to the Bureau of Penology in Stockholm-a des-perate measure, but not a particularly intelligent one, as was inevitable under the circumstances. He had hardly been aboard three minutes before Tristan Adams, the colony's director and chief medic, had alerted Captain Kirk to the escape ("a potentially violent case") and the search was on.

  Nevertheless, in this short time van Gelder, who was six feet four and only in his early forties, was able to ambush a crewman, knock him out, and change clothes with him, acquiring a phaser pistol in the process. Thus disguised, he was able to make his way to the bridge, where he demanded asylum and managed to paralyze operations for three more minutes before being dropped from behind by one of Mr. Spock's famous nerve squeezes. He was then hauled off to be confined in sick bay, and that was that.

  Or that should have been that. Standard operating procedure would have been to give the captive a routine medical check and then ship him by transporter back to Tantalus and the specialized therapeutic resources of Dr. Adams. Kirk, however, had long been an admirer of Dr. Adams' rehabilitation concepts, and had been disappointed that ship's business had given him no excuse to visit the colony himself; now the irruption of this vio-lent case seemed to offer an ideal opportunity. Besides, there was something about van Gelder himself that intrigued Kirk; in their brief encounter, he had not struck Kirk as a common criminal despite his desperation, and Kirk had not been aware that noncriminal psychiatric cases were ever sent to Tantalus. He went to visit the prisoner in the sick bay.

  Dr. McCoy had him under both restraint and sedation while running body function tests. Asleep, his face was relaxed, childlike, vulnerable.

  "I'm getting bursts of delta waves from the electroen-cephalograph," McCoy said, pointing to the body function panel. "Highly abnormal, but not schizophrenia, tissue damage, or any other condition I'm acquainted with. After I got him here, it took a triple dose of sedation to-"

  He was interrupted by a sound from the bed, a strange combination of groan and snarl. The patient was coming back to consciousness, struggling against his bonds.

  "The report said he was quite talkative," Kirk said.

  "But not very informative. He'd claim one thing, seem to forget, then start to claim something else... and yet what little I could understand seemed to have the ring of truth to it. Too bad we won't have time to study him."

  "So that's the system, is it?" the man on the bed said harshly, still struggling. "Take him back! Wash your hands of him! Let somebody else worry! Damn you-"

  "What's your name?" Kirk said.

  "My name... my name..." Suddenly, it seemed to Kirk that he was struggling not against the restraints, but against some kind of pain. "My name is... is Simon... Simon van Gelder."

  He sank back and added almost quietly: "I don't suppose you've heard of me."

  "Same name he gave before," McCoy said.

  "Did I?" said van Gelder. "I'd forgotten. I was Director of... of... at the Tan
talus Colony. Not a prisoner... I was... assistant. Graduate of... of..." His face contorted. "And then at... I did graduate studies at... studies at..."

  The harder the man tried to remember, the more pain he seemed to be in. "Never mind," Kirk said gently. "It's all right. We-"

  "I know," van Gelder said through clenched teeth. "They erased it... edited, adjusted... subverted me! I won't... I won't forget it! Won't go back there! Die first! Die, die!"

  He had suddenly gone wild again, straining and shout-ing, his face a mask of unseeing passion. McCoy stepped close and there was the hiss of a spray hypo. The shout-ing died down to a mutter, then stopped altogether.

  "Any guesses at all?" Kirk said.

  "One point I don't have to guess at," McCoy said. "He doesn't want to go back to that-how did you describe it? 'More like a resort than a prison.' Evidently a cage is still a cage, no matter how you label it."

  "Or else there's something drastically wrong down there," Kirk said. "Keep him secure, Bones. I'm going to do a little research."

  By the time Kirk returned to the bridge, Spock was already removing a tape casette from the viewer. "I got this from our library, Captain," he said. "No doubt about it: our captive is Dr. van Gelder."

  "Dr.-?"

  "That's right. Assigned to Tantalus Colony six months ago as Dr. Adams' assistant. Not committed; assigned. A highly respected man in his field."

  Kirk thought about it a moment, then turned to his Communications Officer. "Lieutenant Uhura, get me Dr. Adams on Tantalus... Doctor? This is Captain Kirk of the Enterprise. Regarding your escapee-"

  "Is Dr. van Gelder all right?" Adams' voice cut in with apparent concern. "And your people? No injuries? In the violent state he's in-"

  "No harm to him or anyone, sir. But we thought you might be able to enlighten us about his condition. My medical officer is baffled."

  "I'm not surprised. He'd been doing some experimen-tal work, Captain. An experimental beam we'd hoped might rehabilitate incorrigibles. Dr. van Gelder felt he hadn't the moral right to expose another man to some-thing he hadn't tried on his own person."

  While Adams had been talking, McCoy had entered from the elevator and had crossed to the library-com-puter station, where he stood listening with Kirk and Spock. Now he caught Kirk's eye and made the imme-morial throat-cutting gesture.

  "I see," Kirk said into the microphone. "Please stand by a moment, Dr. Adams." Uhura broke contact, and Kirk swung to McCoy. "Explain."

  "It doesn't quite ring true, Jim," the medico said. "I don't think whatever's wrong with this patient is some-thing he did to himself. I think it was something that was done to him. I can't defend it, it's just an impres-sion-but a strong one."

  "That's not enough to go on," Kirk said, irritated in spite of himself. "You're not dealing with just any ordi-nary warden here, Bones. In the past twenty years, Adams has done more to revolutionize, to humanize, prisons and the treatment of prisoners than all the rest of humanity had done in forty centuries. I've been to penal colonies since they've begun following his meth-ods. They're not 'cages' any more, they're clean, decent hospitals for sick minds. I'm not about to start throw-ing unsubstantiated charges against a man like that."

  "Who said anything about charges?" McCoy said calmly. "Just ask questions. Propose an investigation. If something's really wrong, Adams will duck. Any harm in trying it?"

  "I suppose not." Kirk nodded to Uhura, who closed the circuit again. "Dr. Adams? This is rather embar-rassing. One of my officers has just reminded me that by strict interpretation of our starship regulations, I'm required to initiate an investigation of this so that a proper report-"

  "No need to apologize, Captain Kirk," Adams' voice said. "In fact, I'd take it as a personal favor if you could beam down personally, look into it yourself. I'm sure you realize that I don't get too many visitors here. Oh-I would appreciate it if you could conduct the tour with a minimum staff. We're forced to limit out-side contact as much as possible."

  "I understand. I've visited rehab colonies before. Very well. Enterprise out... Satisfied, McCoy?"

  "Temporarily," the medical officer said, unruffled.

  "All right. We'll keep van Gelder here until I complete my investigation, anyway. Find me somebody in your department with psychiatric and penological experience- both in the same person, if possible."

  "Helen Noel should do nicely. She's an M.D., but she's written several papers on rehab problems."

  "Very good. We beam down in an hour."

  Though there were plenty of women among the Enter-prise's officers and crew, Helen Noel was a surprise to Kirk. She was young and almost uncomfortably pretty- and furthermore, though Kirk had seen her before, he had not then realized that she was part of the ship's complement. That had been back at the medical lab's Christmas party. He had had the impression then that she was simply a passenger, impressed as female passen-gers often were to be singled out for conversation by the Captain; and in fact, in the general atmosphere of Holi-day he had taken certain small advantages of her impres-sionability... It now turned out that she was, and had then been, the newest addition to the ship's medical staff. Her expression as they met in the transporter room was demure, but he had the distinct impression that she was enjoying his discomfiture.

  Tantalus was an eerie world, lifeless, ravaged, and torn by a bitter and blustery climate, its atmosphere mostly nitrogen slightly diluted by some of the noble gasses-a very bad place to try to stage an escape. In this it closely resembled all other penal colonies, enlight-ened or otherwise. Also as usual, the colony proper was all underground, its location marked on the surface only by a small superstructure containing a transporter room, an elevator head, and a few other service modules.

  Dr. Tristan Adams met them in his office: a man in his mid-forties, with broad warm features, a suspicion of old freckles at the nose, and an almost aggressively friendly manner which seemed to promise firm hand-shakes, humor, an ounce of brandy at the right hour, and complete candor at all times. He hardly seemed to be old enough to have accumulated his massive reputa-tion. The office reflected the man; it was personal, untidy without being littered, furnished with an eye to comfort and the satisfaction of someone perhaps as interested in primitive sculpture as in social medicine.

  With him was a young woman, tall and handsome though slightly cadaverous, whom he introduced as "Lethe." There was something odd about her which Kirk could not quite fathom: perhaps a slight lack of normal human spontaneity in both manner and voice. As if expecting just such a reaction, Adams went on:

  "Lethe came to us for rehabilitation, and ended up staying on as a therapist. And a very good one."

  "I love my work," the girl said, in a flat voice.

  With a glance at Adams for permission, Kirk said: "And before you came here?"

  "I was another person," Lethe said. "Malignant, hateful."

  "May I ask what crime you committed?"

  "I don't know," Lethe said. "It doesn't matter. That person no longer exists."

  "Part of our treatment, Captain, is to bury the past," Adams said. "If the patient can come to terms with his memories, all well and good. But if they're unbear-able, why carry them at all? Sufficient unto the day are the burdens thereof. Shall we begin the tour?"

  "I'm afraid we haven't time for a complete tour," Kirk said. "Under the circumstances, I'd primarily like to see the apparatus or experiment that injured Dr. van Gelder. That, after all, is the whole point of our inquiry."

  "Yes, quite. One doesn't enjoy talking about failures, but still, negative evidence is also important. If you'll just follow me-"

  "One minute," Kirk said, pulling his communicator out of his hip pocket. "I'd best check in with the ship. If you'll pardon me a moment-?"

  Adams nodded and Kirk stepped to one side, partly turning his back. In a moment, Spock's voice was saying softly:

  "Van Gelder's no better, but Dr. McCoy has pulled a few additional bits and pieces out of his memory. They don't seem to ch
ange the situation much. He insists that Adams is malignant, the machine is dangerous. No details."

  "All right. I'll check in with you at four-hour inter-vals. Thus far everything here seems open and above-board. Out."

  "Ready, Captain?" Adams said pleasantly. "Good. This way, please."

  The chamber in which van Gelder had allegedly under-gone his mysterious and shattering conversion looked to Kirk's unsophisticated eye exactly like any other treat-ment room, perhaps most closely resembling a radiology theater. There was a patient on the table as Kirk, Adams, and Helen entered, seemingly unconscious; and from a small, complex device hanging from the ceiling, a nar-row, monochromatic beam of light like a laser beam was fixed on the patient's forehead. Near the door, a uniformed therapist stood at a small control panel, unshielded; evi-dently, the radiation, whatever it was, was not dangerous at even this moderate distance. It all looked quite unalarming.